I just completed an AP with one of my players using a Thaumaturge. They were very powerful offensively if the creature they fought has a weakness. However, they often were the first player to go down in a combat, too.
At higher level, the player was able to extend the benefit of his advantage to weakness to other players.
All in all, a cool class that was able to do a lot of damage with one strike during a round.
I was hoping for more talisman utilization, though, but that was a player preference and it appears the new Exemplar class may do this?
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I just completed an AP with one of my players using a Thaumaturge. They were very powerful offensively if the creature they fought has a weakness. However, they often were the first player to go down in a combat, too.
At higher level, the player was able to extend the benefit of his advantage to weakness to other players.
All in all, a cool class that was able to do a lot of damage with one strike during a round.
I was hoping for more talisman utilization, though, but that was a player preference and it appears the new Exemplar class may do this?
The playtest Exemplar has no special feature dealing with Talismans AFAICT. What they have is objects called Ikons that they empower with their spark of divinity to benefit from special abilities.
The other big issue is the action economy. When you're facing only one or two opponents the thaumaturge does very well. But when you're facing a lot of opponents he does MUCH worse. His amulet reaction comes up far less often, lots of actions have to be spent to continually exploit weakness, etc.
Agreed. Very much like the Ranger.
Where I think the Thaumaturge is overpowered is in all the little details. He can Recall Knowledge with Esoteric Lore to Recall Knowledge about any topic. The -2 is not really a penalty because he is using his Charisma score to do this. It does make other recall knowledge builds look a bit underdone. Especially as the Thaumaturge is still a quality striker.
Plus there are all the little details in the action economy. Swapping implements is something that happens as required free of charge. If you are a alchemist you are going to be quite annoyed about how easy it is.
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I'm a little conflicted on that one. Diverse Lore is very, very strong for a lore feat, kind of out of whack with other options.
But at the same time, RK is a sometimes frustrating activity and a good way for me as a GM to deliver information to the player.
It can't break anything and makes my player who enjoys playing knowledge specialists actually feel good about it in a way most other PF2 options struggle to do.
I'm a little conflicted on that one. Diverse Lore is very, very strong for a lore feat, kind of out of whack with other options.
But at the same time, RK is a sometimes frustrating activity and a good way for me as a GM to deliver information to the player.
It can't break anything and makes my player who enjoys playing knowledge specialists actually feel good about it in a way most other PF2 options struggle to do.
If anything, all other Recall Knowledge feats should be buffed.
I would certainly support Loremaster Lore getting buffed to cap at Master proficiency. The smart character making the check to know the lore the GM worked so hard on is fun for everyone.
Main issue my player is having with Thaumaturge is finding an archetype that works well with it. We are playing with free archetype and she doesn't want to take an archetype lile talisman dabbler ir Eldritch Research cause its just more or the same and doesn't really expand the character flavour much. As Thaum is so action hungry many of the other archetypes don't gel well with it.
Happy if people have good suggestions. We are playing AV. 3 person party and they are smashing it so far. Her thaum background is storm survivor, her family were sailors before the ship went down
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Main issue my player is having with Thaumaturge is finding an archetype that works well with it. We are playing with free archetype and she doesn't want to take an archetype lile talisman dabbler ir Eldritch Research cause its just more or the same and doesn't really expand the character flavour much. As Thaum is so action hungry many of the other archetypes don't gel well with it.
Happy if people have good suggestions. We are playing AV. 3 person party and they are smashing it so far. Her thaum background is storm survivor, her family were sailors before the ship went down
Duelist for Quick Draw and more options as a one-handed combatant.
Exorcist for Haunt flavor and a decent reaction.
Harrower, for early morning all-day boons. It's from AP, but it adds an interesting dynamic to a character.
Pactbinder is also a great way to add flavor to the Thaumaturge (its features were originally theirs).
Other feats that might be helpful from a pragmatic standpoint are Sniping Duo and Scout.
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Duelist for Quick Draw and more options as a one-handed combatant.Main issue my player is having with Thaumaturge is finding an archetype that works well with it. We are playing with free archetype and she doesn't want to take an archetype lile talisman dabbler ir Eldritch Research cause its just more or the same and doesn't really expand the character flavour much. As Thaum is so action hungry many of the other archetypes don't gel well with it.
Happy if people have good suggestions. We are playing AV. 3 person party and they are smashing it so far. Her thaum background is storm survivor, her family were sailors before the ship went down
Quick Draw isn't really needed for a thaumaturge because of Second Implement at 5th: "While you're holding an implement in one hand, you can quickly switch it with another implement you're wearing to use an action from the implement you're switching to. To do so, you can Interact as a free action immediately before executing the implement's action. This allows you to meet requirements of having an implement in hand to use its action."
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I've taken Quick Draw on my thaumaturge and I gotta say it's darned useful for switching between implements and non-implement weapons. Or for when I don't have an implement in hand at the start with which to swap for a weapon implement.
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Quick Draw isn't really needed for a thaumaturge because of Second Implement at 5th: "While you're holding an implement in one hand, you can quickly switch it with another implement you're wearing to use an action from the implement you're switching to. To do so, you can Interact as a free action immediately before executing the implement's action. This allows you to meet requirements of having an implement in hand to use its action."Duelist for Quick Draw and more options as a one-handed combatant.Main issue my player is having with Thaumaturge is finding an archetype that works well with it. We are playing with free archetype and she doesn't want to take an archetype lile talisman dabbler ir Eldritch Research cause its just more or the same and doesn't really expand the character flavour much. As Thaum is so action hungry many of the other archetypes don't gel well with it.
Happy if people have good suggestions. We are playing AV. 3 person party and they are smashing it so far. Her thaum background is storm survivor, her family were sailors before the ship went down
That's good. But what if none of your implements is a weapon? I have some Chalice/Amulet builds that could use action-economy enhancements. Drawing ranged weapons can be useful as well.
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Main issue my player is having with Thaumaturge is finding an archetype that works well with it. We are playing with free archetype and she doesn't want to take an archetype lile talisman dabbler ir Eldritch Research cause its just more or the same and doesn't really expand the character flavour much. As Thaum is so action hungry many of the other archetypes don't gel well with it.
Happy if people have good suggestions. We are playing AV. 3 person party and they are smashing it so far. Her thaum background is storm survivor, her family were sailors before the ship went down
My Thaumaturge is a Marshal.
Champion won't suit the character, they are not likely to gel with tents of good or evil. Character has pitate theme, not evil but definitely self interests ahead of doing good.
Marshal needs actions to do its aura thing which competes with Thaumaturge doing it exploit thing. Increases wind up time for combat.
Psychic/sorc are ok, you are either doing spellcasting or thaum combat routine. She picked sorc archetype and flavoured it in the same way as living vessel sinve there are feat gaps in thst archetype and the lvl 4 and 8 feats not great for her concept and pactbinder ones don't fit. If living vessel had basic spell casting etc it would have been easier.
Sentinel is ok but flavourless and she was looking for flavour and mechanics. Also heavy armour on a pirate didn't gel for her.
We are playing AV with 2 other martial toons (ranger (scout), fighter (duelist) in the party. The 3 of them (despite being new to the system) are absolutely trivialising it.
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The Thaumaturge in my AV game uses Psychic, Champion and Marshal. It's a FAT game and our group allows 2 dedications before the limitation kicks in. I'm also not sure he currently has Psychic at all. He does a lot of retraining and I think he might have swited it out for Champion + Champion's Reaction at level 6.
It's true that activating Inspiring Marshal Stance is heavy on his action econmy, but it does often benefit the whole party due to the cramped layout of AV.
As for the origial topic, the Thamuaturge is fine overall. It can be very good at a number of things depending on build but never do everything at once. It's flexible with a pretty good baseline that carries the class a lot no matter what you choose to specilize in.
My only gripe is Diverse Lore. It's a vastly improved Bardic Lore, while also giving you the action compression of Monster Hunter and the "one skill for everything" effect of Master Monster Hunter. On top of that the Lore scales automatically and uses your Key ability score so you might well end up better than the ranger at monster identification unless he invests heavily into Nature. For a 1st level feat, this is bonkers.
I'm curious to see the remastered Bardic Lore. If it stays unchanged, I'm not sure how the existance of Diverse Lore can be justified.
Fingers crossed for the remaster to have better guidance on what rk does.
Good news, it will be. You can check the threads I have made for details.
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The way Paizo designed the Thaumaturge is in my opinion flat out wrong. The Thaumaturge is by default absolutely out of bounds but Paizo added limitations to prevent it from being overpowered. Unfortunately, you can circumvent all limitations to unleash its massive power.
First limitation: You need an action every round to Exploit or Intensify Vulnerability.
Solution: Increase your action economy. Ranged attacks without reload, Mount, Flurry of Blows, choose your thing. This is the Magus all over again.
Second limitation: You have 2 hands and you can get up to 3 increments and a weapon so you can't combine everything together.
Solution: Either choose the Weapon Implement or unarmed attacks and if you properly choose the third implement you should be able to use them all at once.
Third limitation: You have only one reaction (2 at level 14) and can only Intensify Vulnerability on one Implement at a time so even if you have multiple implements you can't benefit from all of them at the same time.
Solution: Choose one Implement for its reaction, one for its Intensify Vulnerability and the third one only for constant effects. Even if you can't technically combine all of them you are very close to it.
The Thaumaturge is a bliss for powergamers. Even if at low level it is fine by the time you're level 10 any powergamer worth its salt can make a massive beast out of it.
The way Paizo designed the Thaumaturge is in my opinion flat out wrong. The Thaumaturge is by default absolutely out of bounds but Paizo added limitations to prevent it from being overpowered. Unfortunately, you can circumvent all limitations to unleash its massive power.
First limitation: You need an action every round to Exploit or Intensify Vulnerability.
Solution: Increase your action economy. Ranged attacks without reload, Mount, Flurry of Blows, choose your thing. This is the Magus all over again.Second limitation: You have 2 hands and you can get up to 3 increments and a weapon so you can't combine everything together.
Solution: Either choose the Weapon Implement or unarmed attacks and if you properly choose the third implement you should be able to use them all at once.Third limitation: You have only one reaction (2 at level 14) and can only Intensify Vulnerability on one Implement at a time so even if you have multiple implements you can't benefit from all of them at the same time.
Solution: Choose one Implement for its reaction, one for its Intensify Vulnerability and the third one only for constant effects. Even if you can't technically combine all of them you are very close to it.The Thaumaturge is a bliss for powergamers. Even if at low level it is fine by the time you're level 10 any powergamer worth its salt can make a massive beast out of it.
can you give a exemple of the last point ? a implement that you choose for the reaction only, other for the intensify and other for the constant effects ?
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The Amulet has an excellent reaction and a bad intensification.
The Tome or Weapon have excellent Intensifications and no or bad reactions.
The Regalia has neither of those but the constant effect is really nice.